The Worst Magic Trick Ever
by PiezoUnderscore
Summary: Merasmus decides to try something different this Halloween, and things go horribly, HORRIBLY wrong. Also, if you want to find out what happens when you use the Kritzkrieg on a Sacred Arrow, this story is for you.
1. Chapter 1: AWOL

September 16th, 1978. Dustbowl Rocket Station.

A friendly uprising within the ranks had been started by a BLU pyro. The procession, led now by a Scout, danced past an uncapped control point. (After all, there was no real need to capture). As they danced, the sound of the Russian melody "Soldier of Dance" filled the air, played by an unseen orchestra.  
For years, they had been fighting a pointless war against RED team.  
Now, they just wanted a break.  
They marched on, merrily.  
Even the more serious members of the team had decided to lighten up a bit, and join in the dance.

As they danced, their music filled the entirety of what was, minutes earlier, a battlefield.  
However, this moment was very short-lived, as this affair had not gone unnoticed by the other team, whose view of "friendlies" was anything but accepting.  
A RED Soldier had noticed their parade, and was closing in on them.  
He headed in their direction, loaded up his "Air-Strike" Rocket Propelled Grenade Launcher, and peeked around the corner of a cement wall.  
The moment he saw them, he took aim, and applied a slight pressure with his right index finger to the trigger of his Rocket Launcher, sending a rocket flying towards the unwary dancers.

The heavy, whom the others referred to as "hoovy" was the first to notice. Quickly, he stood up, threw his sandvich toward his fellow friendlies, and ducked for cover.  
The rocket whizzed past the Scout's head, and headed towards a BLU Medic, whose back was turned to the events transpiring around the corner.

The rocket struck the BLU medic in the right shoulder-blade, shattering the bone on impact. This, however, was the least of his problems, as the force of the collision triggered a mechanism in the rocket, causing it to explode, taking the friendly Medic with it.  
The Scout was blasted against a wall by the force of the rocket.  
He grabbed the sandvich that Hoovy had left, and ran to join him in the respawn room.  
The Medic vanquished, his friends fled in terror from the Soldier.

The BLU Pyro, who had started the friendly uprising, fired 3 shots at the Soldier, forcing him to run to a healthpack.  
Then, they retreated back to the base, where the rest of their team had fled.

A minute passed.

Now, BLU team sat in wait.  
The Pyro stood by the gate, ready to airblast any rockets back at the enemy.  
The Hoovy, defenseless without the Medic, waited with the Scout, inside the spawn.

Outside, they could hear the enemy soldier calling "GIVE 'EM HELL, BOYS!"  
There was a RED demoman, too.  
"Ayy, stop hidin' like a bunch 'a bloody cowards!"

"Augh, this stinks." said the BLU Demo.  
"Headcount! Everyone line up." said the BLU Soldier.

The BLU team lined up out in front of the Resupply room.  
"Let's see. Medic's dead, Heavy, Pyro, Sniper, Engie, Demo, Scout, you're all here..." Soldier counted them off. "Where is our Spy?!"

The sound of a car's ignition filled the air.

"Come on!" called a familiar French voice. "We don't have all day, gentlemen!"  
The team turned, to see the BLU Spy sitting in the driver's seat of a camper-van, belonging to Mr. Mundee, the Sniper.  
"GNEAAAH!" said Mr. Mundee, frantically checking his pockets. "How the bloody hell'd 'ya get my keys?!"  
"I would give you ze explanation worthy of Sherlock Holmes himself, but right now, we have another problem!"  
A voice played over the loudspeaker system that had been set up by Mann Co.

"ALERT. Mission ends in thirty seconds."

Everyone on BLU knew what that meant. In thirty seconds, unless they decided to abandon their friendly ways and capture the control point, their Mann Co. Issued Mercenary Weapons would lock up, effectively rendering them defenseless from the RED team, who had proven themselves to be merciless killers.

"Well don't just stand there!" shouted Dell Conagher, the BLU Engineer, running towards the van with a toolbox in his arms.  
"Move out! Move out!" called the BLU Soldier, following Dell.  
The rest of the team climbed into the back of the camper, except for the Sniper, who insisted on sitting in the front to make sure that The Spy did not sap his radio.  
They drove off just as the timer hit zero, and the enemy team charged into their spawn, only to find they were a bit late.

But enough of these Mercs.

We now shift our focus to another location, equally important to the story: a small house in the slums of Teufort, where a second-rate Eldrich Sorcerer had been watching the mercenaries through a crystal ball.  
A smirk spread across his face, which was hidden by a dark grey scarf.  
Merasmus had been waiting a long time for this opportunity.

Normally, the BLU Medic was more careful. He stayed out of the line of fire, and only pushed the objective if he had a full Übercharge ready to deploy if things got rough.  
But now, Medic had let his guard down, and paid the price.

Merasmus had been planning, for years, what he would do if he ever got his hands on Medic's remains.

Merasmus grabbed the Bombinomicon, a market gardener's shovel and a wheel-barrel, and teleported, without delay, to the Dustbowl Rocket Station.

The afternoon air was hot and dry, and nothing moved on the battlefield.

A single dove stood perched on the roof of a building. It flew away when Merasmus noticed its presence.  
Merasmus looked around, and spotted the pile of ash and bone that once was the BLU Medic.  
He rolled the wheel-barrel over to the spot, and began to shovel the remains.  
From behind him, he heard the sound of a Spy's cloak deactivating.

He turned around, to see the RED spy leaning against the wall, twiddling a cigarette between his fingers.

"Looking for something, gentleman?"  
"Agh!" said Merasmus, startled. He recovered himself, and then turned to face the Spy.  
"You! Mortal fool! Do not meddle in the affairs of a wizard!"  
"Oh. then I suppose you won't be needing zis?" the Spy moved to the left, revealing a Medi-gun that he had been standing in front of.  
"Ah, um. I... Well..."  
"I am curious. Tell me, what exactly are you up to, Monsieur Merasmus?"  
"Oh, nothing... Nothing... Please give me the medi-gun."  
"Nothing, you say. You teleport in after ze end of a battle, you are shoveling ze BLU Medic's ashes into a wheel-barrel, you want me to give you ze medi-gun. You are most definitely up to something, and I would like to know, before you plan to unleash it on us."  
"Oh, no, not that. I just want the medi-gun for an experiment... It's... for my garden. I'm going to... yes! I'm going to Übercharge the fertilizer, and see what happens!

The Spy was not amused.  
"Everything you just said was obviously a lie." he said, frankly. "However, I really must get going, and my team has no use for a BLU Medi-gun, so here. Go make yourself some Eldrich Clusterf***, gentlemen. All I ask is that you don't come running to me when it comes crashing down on your head zis Halloween."

The RED spy tossed the medi-gun on the ground in front of Merasmus, who picked it up, and placed it in the wheel-barrel.  
"You're welcome." said the Spy, walking off toward his team's spawn.  
Um, Thank you!" said Merasmus.

Merasmus took the wheel-barrel, and rolled it back towards Teufort in the last light of the evening.  
He briefly sifted through the wheel barrel, making sure he had gotten as much of the BLU Medic as possible.

Everything looked to be in order.

As he headed home, he fantasized about the long-deserved fame he would finally achieve, if this plan succeeded.  
The Medic was only step one...

Merasmus quickened his pace; he wanted to be home before the witching hour, when he would perform _the ritual_.


	2. Chapter 2: Shadow of the Past

The sun had set, and darkness fell over the badlands. The BLU team sat in the back of Mr. Mundee's old camper van, as Spy drove them down a lonesome dirt road.

Dell sat on the floor, bent over a coffee table in the middle of the camper. At the moment, he was hard at work on a blueprint.  
The camper came to a screeching halt, sending Dell's protractor flying across the room, and colliding with Scout's head.  
"Oww! Spy, what the hell was that crap?"  
"Dagnabbit. Y'all couldn't 'a slowed down before ya slammed on the breaks?" said Dell.

"Spy?" asked Soldier. "Why did we stop?"  
"Um, gentlemen, is there enough room in the camper for an extra passenger?"  
"Barely." said Hoovy.

Scout leaned over the seat, to see a young woman staring into the window.  
She had black hair, as dark as the night around them, and she wore a white kimono top with a red lower section.

In one hand, she held a lantern.  
In the other, she held a bow, similar to the Sniper's Huntsman, although the design indicated that its creator had significantly more experience as a craftsman than Mr. Mundee.

"Hello." said the young woman, with an unnatural calmness. "I apologize if I startled you."  
"Um, hello." said the Spy.  
"I understand if you can't, but if you have room for another passenger, I would be very grateful."  
"B-But of course..." said Spy, nervously.

He turned back to the rest of BLU team.  
"Gentlemen, if you could make room for one passenger, please."

There were groans of disapproval from the team.  
"I promise, I won't take up much room. My time here is limited anyway."  
"No worries, Mate." said Mr. Mundee. "Er, we'd love to lend 'ya a hand."

With that, Spy pressed a button on the dashboard, and the back door of the camper van opened.  
The young woman stepped into the crowded portable living room.

There was hardly any space.  
The Pyro scooted over on the couch, and patted the space now available next to them.  
"Mrph-hrdrph" said Pyro, kindly.

The hitchhiker girl smiled, and thanked the Pyro.  
She shut the door behind her, set her Bow and quiver down against the wall, and sat down between the Pyro and the Scout.

"Shall we get moving?" asked the Spy.  
"Yeah." said Dell.

Spy started up the engine, and the camper lurched forward, forcing Dell to grab hold of his blueprinting tools.

"So, uh, Miss. what's your name?" asked the Scout.  
"Kikyo." said the hitchhiker.  
"Where 'ya headed?"  
"I'm already here. It was you that I was hoping to find."  
"Oh, real romantic, I see. I got a million of those one-liners. You wanna hear some?"  
Kikyo smiled a bit. "Not right now. Perhaps later." she paused. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, but when I said that, I didn't mean that I was looking for you, specifically. I meant that I was hoping to find all of you. I've come to warn you about something. I-"

"WAIT." said Soldier. "You're on red team!"  
"I- What?"  
"You're wearing red!"  
"This is just my kimono. I don't see how it-"  
"AT-TAAAACK!" shouted Soldier, pulling a pickaxe from inside his trenchcoat.  
Kikyo raised her hand to block, and a shield of purifying light surrounded her.

Demoman grabbed Soldier, and held him back.  
"Bloody hell. Are we still friendlies, or not, lad?!"

"I am sorry." said Soldier. "If you wish to dishonorably discharge me, you may kick me out the back door, and leave me on the roadside. I will not resist."  
"AYE! Calm down." said the Demoman. "We've got to keep our wits about us!"

The chaos died down, and now, all eyes were on Kikyo, who was still holding up the spiritual barrier.  
"Whoa." said Scout.  
"I am sorry if I have caused you concern. I have merely come to warn you."  
"Wha-what was that shield... thing... That you just..."  
"It was a barrier made of spiritual energy."

"My god... Who ARE you?" asked the Soldier.  
"In ancient times, I was the guardian of a cursed object known as the Shikon Jewel."

"So why'd you come lookin' for us?" asked Scout.  
"I believe your friend, the one you call 'Medic', may be in serious trouble."  
"Serious, alright. He's frikkin dead."  
"I was aware."  
"Then wha'dya mean he's in trouble?"  
"Recently, there has been a disturbance in the sea of demonic aura that surrounds the netherworld. Your friend's soul is right at the center of the disturbance vortex, which either means he's been caught in it, or he's the source of it."

"So... he is alive?" asked Hoovy.  
"I can't say for sure. He could be alive, he could be dead, or he could be... neither."  
"Neither?"  
"There are... places in between life and death... I can't explain right now. I'm feeling very tired, after climbing all the way up from the Underworld... Do you mind if I rest for a bit?" Kikyo yawned.

Pyro took off their scarf, and handed it to Kikyo.  
"Hrm-Mmph-mrph."

"Thank you." said Kikyo, taking the scarf.

Our focus now shifts, again, to the wizard, who is currently attempting to lift a wheel-barrel of Medic remains onto his doorstep.

"Gneah!" grunted Merasmus, pushing the wheel-barrel into his house. "Son of a..."

The floorboards creaked under the weight of it.

Merasmus looked at the clock on his wall.  
It was 11:49 PM. He had to work quickly. He needed to have everything ready before the Witching Hour.

He rolled the wheel-barrel into his bathroom, dropped the medi-gun into the sink, and dumped everything else into the bathtub.

He ran some water over the mud, bones and ash, and gave it a stir.  
Of course, nothing happened.

He ran back to his workstation, grabbed a bottle of herbs, a haunted mini-gargoyle, and a vial of 0.0025 M Australium(III) Carbonate.

He added the herbs to the sludge, and held the Bombinomicon open in front of him, while muttering an Eldrich incantation.  
Then, he stepped back, pulled a rubber glove over his hand, and grabbed an eyedropper from the cupboard.

Merasmus carefully added one drop of Australium(III) Carbonate (A **₂** (CO **₃** ) **₃** ) to the stew, causing it to fizzle violently.  
He waited until the reaction calmed down  
Then, he raised the Soul Gargoyle above the mixture, and shook it like a saltshaker, until 5 harvested souls came out, and fell into the bathtub.

The mixture began to pulsate with green energy, as the Eldrich spell began to work, pulling the Medic's soul back from the underworld.


	3. Chapter 3: The Gathering Storm

In the back of Mr. Mundee's camper van, most of the BLU Mercs had drifted off to sleep, except for the Soldier, who had appointed himself a a door-guard.  
He stood, facing against the door, staring out the small window into the dark road behind them.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a vertical wall of energy moving toward the van.  
"INCOMING!" yelled Soldier, waking everyone with a start.

They looked around, dazed for a moment.  
"Hurry, LOOK!" shouted Soldier.

"Mrr-FRR-hrrdrr." said Pyro, irritatedly.

Scout stood up, and walked towards the window.

The van shook as the massive wave of energy passed through it, leaving a gale of unsettled dust behind it.  
The force of the wave caused the Eylander to fly out of the Demoman's sheath, and land on the floor.

"AUGH!." said the BLU Demo, quickly picking up the Eyelander and re-sheathing it. "Don't mind that! Just me sword! Nothin' ghostly..."  
"Don't worry, I've seen demon swords before" said Kikyo.  
She paused for a moment, and then looked off in the direction where the bizarre wave had gone. "If that wave of demonic aura was what I think it was, then we have a serious problem, and your friend is in a LOT of trouble."

And indeed, he was. For, at that moment, the clock had struck 12:00 AM in the town of Teufort.

In the bathroom of a small house owned by the Eldrich Sorcerer named Merasmus, the Witching Hour was at hand.  
Waves of dark energy flowed through the bubbling green mixture.

Merasmus raised the Bombinomicon above his head, and green lightning arced from the book, into the luminescent stew.  
"EMERGUS EXMORTIS!

The air around him grew distorted with the immense heat emanating from the pool of Eldrich energy in his bathtub.  
If he had used a live human as an activator, this would have been easier, but Merasmus was not so fortunate as to have a(living) body on hand,  
so he had used Australium(III) Carbonate as a substitute, despite its inherent instability.

"EMERGUS EXMORTIS!" He shouted again.

The floor became translucent, and Merasmus could see a mass of light blue energy flying towards him from below.  
The ball of energy flew into the Medic's remains, and then the power went out, leaving Merasmus in the dark.

"Son of a...!"  
Merasmus dug through his robes and pulled out an oil lantern.  
"Invokum ignis." he whispered, tapping the lamp.  
The wick caught fire, casting a dim, yellow glow onto the scene.

The mixture in the bathtub had dried into a solid, clay-like substance.  
Merasmus leaned over the tub, watching the contents cautiously.  
"Welp, there goes THAT plan." he said, and turned around to go turn the power back on.

There was a shuffling noise behind him, followed by the sound of shattering ceramics.  
"Ugh." said the BLU Medic. "WHUAGH!"

Merasmus turned around to see a charred surgeon's glove reaching out of the mass of clay.

The surface shattered, and Medic stood up.  
His clothes were charred, torn, dusty and bloodstained, and his hair was blown to one side.

He straightened his glasses, and pulled a vita-saw from his coat pocket.

"Alright, wizard." said Medic. "Vhat have you done with my kidneys?"

"Your... What?"

"Do not play games vith me, Merasmus. I know ze story. I wake up in a bathtub full of ice wate- Wait a second..."  
Medic turned around, and looked at the tub full of hardened clay.  
"What on earth?" he trailed off...

It was then that Medic saw his wrist.  
Immediately, he noticed an unnatural paleness.

He pulled off his left glove, and examined his hand.  
"Mein gott! I have no veins! Wizard! What have you done?!"  
Medic stopped for a second to further examine his arm.  
"Actually, zis is really interesting. How did you do zis?"

"I... um... Merasmus doesn't exactly know what he did, because he followed a cheap online walkthrough!"  
"Ugh... Wunderbar." said Medic, sarcastically.

"But it successfully revived you, so it must have worked!"  
"Revived? When was I dead?"

"You don't remember? Dustbowl? Third stage? First control point? You were hit by a rocket?"  
"Hmm... I do not recall..."  
"Welp, you died, and Merasmus has revived you by stuffing your soul inside a clay puppet!"  
"Stop referring to yourself in ze third person, wizard. You are trying my patience".

"DO NOT INTERRUPT MERASMUS!"

"Dummkoph" muttered Medic.

"You'll have to understand, Merasmus has been... down on his luck. He was kicked out of the Eldrich Convention, banned from the Underworld Forum, and now he is on the run from not one, but TWO Mafia syndicates!"

"And what does zis have to do with me?" said the BLU Medic, growing very impatient.

"Ah. You see, Merasmus has a plan to resolve ALL of these problems, but he needs your help."

"Hmm... Let me see. Help ze idiot wizard with his convoluted scheme... Hmm... Nein."  
"Nine? Nine what? Nine o-clock?"  
"No, you idiot. Nein. As in, no. I'm not interested. Go ask someone who cares."  
Medic headed toward the front door.

"I... thought you might say that! And that is why I should probably tell you that there's a catch... to how I revived you!"  
Merasmus pulled the Soul Gargoyle from under his robes.  
"You see, keeping someone's soul inside a clay body takes a lot of energy. The exact kind of energy that can only be gotten from human souls.  
And one of the only ways of harvesting souls is with this Gargoyle!  
Basically, you need human sols to live. I have a supply of human souls. You help me with my plan, I give you souls."

"Ugh." said Medic.

As the Medic came to terms with his situation, his teammates(and Kikyo) were in an unfamiliar area of the badlands. They had changed their course, heading towards the source of the wave of demonic aura.

"We have to move quickly." said Kikyo. If that wizard's doing what I think he is, we can't waste a second."

"It is not safe, gentlemen," said Spy, "ze road curves too often; we would crash if I drove any faster."  
They were currently driving along a poorly marked dirt path, through a deep, narrow canyon of brownish grey rock.

"Yo, uh, guys" said Scout. "Do ya' think we took a wrong turn? This is lookin' real weird."

"It should not be." said Spy. "We drove though here earlier."

They continued on, for what seemed like forever.  
It was now 1:12 AM.  
The Spy was exhausted, but he kept driving.  
He couldn't fully see the road ahead of him, only the small, circular area lit up by the headlights.  
However, as he drove, he thought he could see an electric cable running along the ground.

Suddenly, the van's engine groaned, and they slowed down.  
Spy looked at the dashboard. They were out of gas.  
"Oh, MERDE."  
The van stopped completely.

Spy stepped pout of the van, and looked around.  
There had, indeed been an electric cable on the road, and it came to an end at a metal gate in the cliffside, just ahead of them.

"Monsieur Mundee?" Spy called to the Sniper.  
"Yea?"  
"May I borrow a flashlight?"

Sniper opened the van's glove compartment, and tossed his flashlight to the Spy, who caught it skillfully between his middle and index finger.  
"Merci."

Spy turned on the flashlight, and pointed it towards the garage-door in the cliffside.  
"Oh no..."

The Scout walked up next to him.  
It was cold out, and Spy's breath created a thick fog in the flashlight's beam.  
Scout had borrowed an old winter greatcoat that had belonged to the late BLU Medic.  
"Oh, this does not look good." said Scout, seeing the sign on the door.

It was a solid aluminum plate, fastened to the door by rivets. On it, in blocky letters, read:  
"GREY MANN. MECHANICAL COMBAT PROTOTYPING FACILITY"


End file.
